Bulette
Feared and hated by most living creatures, bulettes are extremely dangerous, burrowing unseen beneath the soil before erupting up at an unexpected moment to seize their prey. Ecology Physical characteristics Bulettes are sometimes supposed to be a bizarre cross between an armadillo and a snapping turtle, though there is little evidence to support this theory. Bulettes are heavily armored, however, like either creature, and have a powerful jaw mechanism for snapping up their unsuspecting prey. In many cases a bulette will swallow its prey whole, consuming their victims clothing, weapons, and other equipment along with the creature itself, which the bulette can in fact digest successfully through the use of powerful stomach acid. Bulettes are covered head to toe in armor. Around the head and rear, this armor is a blue-brown color, while in-between the hue might range from gray-blue to blue-green. Areas around the eyes are slightly darkened, with the eyes themselves being a yellow color with blue-green pupils. However, while bulettes can see in perfect darkness with these eyes they are not a bulette’s primary method of sensory perception. Instead, bulettes typically hunt through the detection of vibrations in the ground, moving towards the source of the movement when their hunger is aroused. Behavior The male bulette’s mating ritual is fairly complicated, involving the killing of deer and boars, these being placed in a wide circle. He then digs a shallow pit in the middle of the circle, and lines it with the bones of the animals he has killed. Over the course of about a week, the bulette slowly grinds the bones in the pit into a fine powder. He then digs underneath the pit and waits for the female. The female usually comes along within a month after being attracted by the odor, at which point the bulettes mate. It takes only a day and a half for the female to lay around a dozen eggs, covered in spines, and by the next morning, they have hatched. During hatching, the female bulette makes a noise like an elephant. Once hatched, the newborn bulettes immediately attack the mother, in an attempt to kill her. She fights back, and although she usually kills a few of the young, she succumbs to their attacks more often than not. Apothecary The bulette has been hunted by humans since The Great Silence for their use in Apothecary formulae. The liver, heart and blood were highly prized (as well as the thick hide as armor) for their use in curative and restorative potions. This lead the humans into the lands of Scorch where they could hunt them with greater frequency. This also brought the humans into conflict with the Hobgoblin tribes in the area who felt that the creature was a near-sacred animal. Hunting the Bulette requires several people working in near-perfect concert to both isolate and contain the four limbs of the creature to prevent it from attacking or escaping. Once held by sturdy ropes or chains, the creature has to be 'coaxed' into revealing its belly or open mouth where it is more vulnerable. At that point a ballista is used to fire a heavy, barbed-tipped bolt into the creature (also attached to a chain). Category:Creature/Huge Category:Fauna/Ivory Plains Category:Fauna/Plains Category:Beast/Magical Category:Fauna/Forest Category:Fauna/Mountains Category:Fauna/Underground Category:Fauna/Scorch Category:Fauna/Apothecary Category:Fauna/Iron Desert